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Well today is the second Saturday of the month, which means "Sweepers Meetings!" I haven't been in several months (Actually this was my first meeting for this year..yikes!) but I did enjoy myself today. I have been a member of this club for probably four or five years, but I've made many friends and I truly enjoy the comradeship of it all.

Of course, it's always fun to participate in the drawings that we have. In case you have never been to a sweeper's meeting in your area, here is a little bit of how our club does it, each month. Most clubs follow a very similar pattern, I'm sure. (If I've already written about local clubs, please forgive me.)

We meet once a month, in a local eatery, that has a separate dinning hall, that allows us to hold our meeting with a little bit of privacy. The place that we go to, actually doesn't charge us to use this dinning hall, but does hope that we bring business to it, by eating their food and drink. This usually isn't a probably, as we have our meeting during lunch time, and I would say about half of us, if not more, eats something. They have really good food, so it's not hard at all to do.

We start our meeting around 1pm and it usually goes until 3pm. That's how long we have our room booked for. This same room is also used by other people for family reunions, other club meetings, or what have you. I like this time of day, since I am *SO* not a morning person. In fact, if it was later, it would only suit me better. But then I am lazy.

We have five drawings each month, which you can enter. You are not required to, but it is fun to participate. The five drawings consist of: 5 decorated envelopes, five first class stamps (.44 cents at the moment), $1 lottery tickets, $1.00 for the cash drawing, and 5 Picture Postcards. The limit that we have is one entry for everything, except for the lotto and the cash drawing. Those are unlimited.

It all depends on how many people are in a club, as to how they split the pot up. For us, we usually have two winners for each drawing. The $1.00 lottery tickets and the $1.00 cash is actually drawn only one winner, and the other winner is the club. The funds received from these two drawings, goes into our "pot" and is used for our Christmas party that we have at the end of the year.

Another thing that is done at our meetings is Promotions! These are fun little games for our members, to win prizes. Each month a different person hosts these promotions and sponsors the prizes. We've played games like Bingo, guess the number of ??? in the jar (jellybeans, candy, whatever you want), Blackjack, 20 questions (we did this one today and it was a lot of fun, I must say) and so many more. I must say, I am horrible at thinking of promotions. I think it stems from my experience of low self esteem. ( I am still working on it, what I can I say?)

Something else that we are doing is creating Baskets. They can be any size or theme. We sell raffle tickets and then draw a winner from that. I actually won one of this months baskets and I am thrilled with it. The person that put it together is so good at putting these things together and I know I will get a lot of enjoyment from my prize (which included various sweeping supplies) I might even take a photo of it, and share it with you guys. It wasn't in a typical "basket" form, but something else, that I thought was very creative!

The money that is collected for these basket raffles, at this time is going towards the National Sweepers convention. The National convention gives away TONS of prizes each year, and a lot of the prizes given away are actually given to the host, to giveaway. Our group usually takes the money collected and purchase a visa gift card or two, and gives it away. The National Convention always mentions who donated the prize, which I think is nice.

Another thing that our group does, which is nice is everyone donates something small to whoever is celebrating a birthday in that same month. It can range from decorated envelopes, 3 x 5 papers/cards, stamps, candles, candy, and whatever use you can think of. We had two birthdays this month and I think it's a really nice treat for the birthday person.

While we are at our meeting, we also share what we have won during the month since the last meeting, and we take turns and go around in a circle. After wards we share other sweepstakes related news. Weather it's a local mall drop box, or something seen in the paper. We bring Official Entry Blanks to the meeting, if we find any and share those. This is where some of us can find out new information. We share tips or tricks on entering sweepstakes.

Today has been such a beautiful day and I did enjoy myself. Of course, winning my prize didn't hurt either! :) The only downside, is now I'm pooped!